...a summary of the strategic capabilities plan and a raft of other Pentagon and armed forces documents made available to The Times make it clear that the new approach now includes other elements as well: the management of public information, efforts to control* news media sources and manipulation of public opinion.
The plan summary, for instance, talks of "strategic" deception and "influence operations" as basic tools in future wars. According to another Defense Department directive on information warfare policy, military leaders should use information "operations" to "heighten public awareness; promote national and coalition policies, aims, and objectives ... [and] counter adversary propaganda and disinformation in the news."
Both the Air Force and the Navy now list deception as one of five missions for information warfare, along with electronic attack, electronic protection, psychological attacks and public affairs. A September draft of a new Air Force policy describes information warfare's goals as "destruction, degradation, denial, disruption, deceit, and exploitation." These goals are referred to collectively as "D5E." [...]
Since reporters cannot travel into parts of Iraq and other places in the region without military escort, what they report is generally what they've been told.
And when the information that military officers provide to the public is part of a process that generates propaganda and places a high value on deceit, deception and denial, then truth is indeed likely to be high on the casualty list.
That is bad news for the American public. In the end, it may be even worse news for the Bush administration -- and for a U.S. military that has spent more than 25 years climbing out of the credibility trap called Vietnam.
*It's much easier to control news sources when the FCC's overlord Michael "Son of Colin" Powell gives the thumbs-up to media monopolies. See the post below.
